# Alashiya in the Amarna Letters (c. 1350 BCE)

URL: https://allhistories.com/cyprus/timeline/-1350-alashiya-in-the-amarna-letters
Location: Alashiya (Cyprus) and el-Amarna, Egypt
Themes: Treaties & Law

In the 14th century BCE the great powers of the Near East, Egypt, Babylon, Mitanni, the Hittites and Assyria, exchanged letters and gifts written in Akkadian cuneiform, the diplomatic language of the age. An archive of such letters was found in 1887 at el-Amarna, the capital built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten. Among them are eight letters (EA 33–40) from the king of Alashiya, a copper-rich land generally identified with Cyprus, addressed to the Pharaoh, probably Amenhotep III or Akhenaten, whom he calls his brother. The king sends copper, in one letter 500 talents, and asks in return for silver, oil and an Egyptian expert in interpreting eagle omens. He apologises for the small amount, explaining that the "hand of Nergal", a plague, had killed many of his people, and denies that his subjects had joined the Lukka raiders attacking Egypt's coast. In 2003 petrographic analysis of the clay of the letters found that it came from the southern foothills of the Troodos mountains. The letters show Alashiya as an independent kingdom treated almost as an equal by Egypt, its prestige resting on copper. The clay analysis greatly strengthened the long-debated identification of Alashiya with Cyprus. At this point in the timeline (c. 1350 BCE), no ruler of Cyprus is recorded in this dataset; the island was home to prehistoric and Bronze Age communities.

## Why it matters
The Amarna letters are the earliest written evidence of Cyprus as a kingdom in international diplomacy, built on its copper wealth.

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Alashiya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alashiya)
- [Wikipedia — Amarna letters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_letters)
- [Wikipedia — Prehistory And The Bronze Age (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Cyprus)